The New Jersey Devils are sitting on a prospect pool that is no longer considered one of the best in the league. The superstar prospects have graduated to the NHL with varied levels of success, and what’s left has not filled the void. Between a few notable busts and the Devils trading first-round picks in 2023 and 2025 despite a lack of actual contention, the team has left much to be desired in terms of young players.
Last season, pretty much every single prospect failed to deliver on their promise. Seamus Casey suffered a litany of injuries. Anton Silayev got a new coach in the KHL that cut his ice time almost in half. Mikhail Yegorov went from winning the Beanpot and making it to the National Championship Game to failing to be much of anything at the end of the season for Boston University. Ben Kevan and Conrad Fondrk had a terrible first season in the NCAA, and we’re running out of room to talk about the top-to-bottom disaster that is the Devils’ prospect pool.
On top of everything, the Devils lack the one position they really need.Â
The Devils have zero center depth. Both in the NHL and in their prospect pool, there are no centers. This is what happens when you have Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier on the roster. Teams make the mistake to fail the stock piling of the most important position in the sport. Don’t get us wrong, a bad goalie can derail the entire team, as Jacob Markstrom did last season for the Devils, but former Devil Scott Wedgewood showed that a decent player in a great situation can still have impact. That’s not the case for a center.
And that’s why Tom Fitzgerald basically failing to address the center position for years is going to kill the Devils, and now Sunny Mehta must pick up the pieces.Â
Fitzgerald made 40 draft picks since taking Dawson Mercer with the 18th-overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft. He’s taken eight centers. None were taken in the first round, and the only one he took in the second round in that time (Fondrk) hasn’t played enough to see if he’d play as a center at BU (we think he actually wouldn’t).Â
The New Jersey Devils need to add centers to their prospect pool
They turned down opportunities to draft Logan Cooley, Shane Wright, Konsta Helenius, and Logan Stankoven. Now, they are in a position where center is a need.
Looking at the Utica Comets, the centers they have on the roster are longtime captain Ryan Schmelzer, 34-year-old Kyle Criscuolo, former sixth-round pick Matyas Melovsky, and Marc McLaughlin, who is a UFA this offseason after an injury-riddled season. There might be something in Melovsky, but we wouldn’t say he’s really to make the jump if one of Hughes, Hischier, Cody Glass, or Nick Bjugstad gets injured.Â
This puts the Devils in a position where they almost have to draft a center at 12th overall in Friday’s NHL Draft.Â
The top center prospects in this year’s draft are really good. Some believe Tynan Lawrence has a chance to fall to the Devils at 12, which would be a huge win. Viggo Bjorck has played some center, but he probably transitions to wing at the next level. Alexander Command is an interesting prospect, but most would consider him a reach at 12. Maddox Dagenais is an interesting name if the Devils decide to trade down.Â
This being Sunny Mehta’s first draft as Devils GM, we do think he’s going to go the route of best-player available, but the Devils cannot keep drafting defensemen and putting them in the constant position where they have to trade them. The Simon Nemec situation should be a one-time transgression. Unless Chase Reed or Keaton Verhoeff falls to them at 12, the pick should be a center.
There are some great wings in this class, and that might make the centers come at a bigger premium. We see Mehta making those picks and focusing on center in different ways. We’ll see what happens, but Fitzgerald put Mehta in an unenviable position come Friday night.Â
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